French voters took to the polls for the first round of the 2022 presidential elections and it’s got people asking if it will come down to Macron vs Le Pen again?
So far Macron is in the lead, followed closely by Marine Le Pen, but, more surprisingly, the close third place is Jean-Luc Mélanchon. However, how did the other candidates perform? What happens next?
How did the 12 candidates do?
As most of the polls expected, the top two candidates were Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. The high 21.95% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon was not something many people expected after much lower results in previous elections.
- Macron – 27.60%
- Le Pen – 23.41%
- Mélenchon – 21.95%
- Zémmour – 7.05%
- Pécresse – 4.79%
- Jadot – 4.58%
- Lassalle – 3.16%
- Roussel – 2.31%
- Dupont-Aignan – 2.07%
- Hidalgo – 1.74%
- Poutou – 0.77%
- Arthaud – 0.57%
The Macron and Le Pen results were not something that were unexpected. However, Marine Le Pen still got more votes than in 2017. In 2017 Macron got almost a quarter of all votes and Le Pen got just over a fifth of the vote.
So, it seems that Le Pen’s party, le Rassemblement National, has become more popular than it was in 2017. It gives her supporters a lot of hope over the next two weeks of debates and campaigning ahead of round two.
Furthermore, Le Pen’s right wing opposition Eric Zemmour scored only 7.05% of the vote. It seemed like it would be a fight to the finish between these two right wing contenders, however it was not the case.
Another one of the surprises from Sunday was the unexpected good result of far left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In his third bid for the presidency the 70-year-old scored a best of 21.95%.
This was up from his 2017 results of 19.58%. His very good performance led him to be crowned as the most successful left wing party. No other left wing party scored over 10% of the vote.
What do these results show?
As 2017 had already started to show, the political landscape of France is changing. In 2017 it was, centrist Macron who had gained a large share of the votes, whilst the traditional parties were simply after thoughts in voter’s minds.
There is a clear realignment for French politics. The Republican Party (of President Sarkozy) and the Socialist party (of President Hollande) are clearly not parties that French voters look to when voting. After this poor showing of the traditional left and right wing parties, it arguably leads France to not having traditional mainstream right and left wing parties.
The turnout results show that the French people were enthusiastic about going to the polls again, as turnout is estimated at 75%. While, this is high, it’s not as high as 2017 when turnout was at 77%. Abstention this year is measured at 26%, which a little higher than in 2017.
Whilst this might seem as quite high it is not as high as it was twenty years ago, nor is it as high as polls had predicted.
Who is endorsing who?
Last night, as the first estimations dropped and it was clear who would run in the second round, the unsuccessful candidates stood up in front of their voters and spoke out. In their speeches most of them announced who they would be backing.
Most of the unsuccessful candidates called to vote for current incumbent Macron. Valérie Pecresse the Republican candidate and Anne Hidalgo are among the two who endorsed Emmanuel Macron. On the other side both Eric Zemmour and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan called to vote for Marine Le Pen.
The only candidate who did not endorse a specific candidate is Jean Luc Mélanchon. He did not specifically endorse Macron but said to not ‘give any votes to Madame Le Pen.’
What happens next?
The current polls show that the race for the second round will be much tighter than in 2017. Macron, on top of having to deal with an international crisis, has to prepare for a second round of campaigning.
Voters can look forward to an inter round debate, which will be crucial for the candidates. This is likely to take place in a couple of week and will give Macron and Le Pen time to face off and show voters why they should vote for either of them.
The next two weeks are crucial. Who knows what else the world will see, but one this is for sure all the candidates have to work harder than in 2017.